Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 83699 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 418(@200wpm)___ 335(@250wpm)___ 279(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83699 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 418(@200wpm)___ 335(@250wpm)___ 279(@300wpm)
Ava Harrington, brilliant billionaire businesswoman, has conquered the world. And yet, scarred by a love lost fifteen years ago, she's built a wall around her heart, swearing off love forever.
Ransom Yates’s culinary genius has taken him to the pinnacle of success as a magnetic celebrity chef. But that success came at a devastating price when he left behind the woman who held the key to his heart.
Their reunion is anything but sweet when Ava must swallow her pride and seek Ransom's help, though he’s the last person she ever wanted to turn to in a crisis. But the sparks flying between them are hotter than ever — and their undeniable chemistry reignites their long-buried passion with steamy kisses and sultry nights.
Ransom can't help but fall for the woman he never stopped loving. But Ava's heart is still hardened with the memory of how their long-ago affair ended. Can they find a second chance at love? Or is their love forever lost in the ashes of their past?
REUNITED IN LOVE is part of Bella Andre and Jennifer Skully’s bestselling series about The Maverick Billionaires. While it can easily be read as a standalone story, you'll likely enjoy reading the other books too.
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Chapter One
They say redheads can have a temper. Ava Harrington did not. At least, not usually. But today, she was furious. When she left her San Juan Bautista care facility, she’d been near boiling. And not due to the unseasonably warm late-September weather. Now, as she entered her San Francisco headquarters after the ninety-minute drive north, her anger had turned into a raging inferno.
In the elevator, she punched the button for the top floor, almost breaking her nail. What she’d witnessed in the care home’s dining room had filled her with horror. The situation was horrendous, and even now, she trembled with the aftereffects.
As she passed through the accounting department, her high heels stabbed the carpet. But despite her roiling emotions, she smiled at her assistant, Naomi Wells, as she entered the outer office of the executive suite. None of this was Naomi’s fault.
And yet her blond, thirtysomething assistant seemed to be quaking behind her desk.
Ava ratcheted down her temper. She liked to think of herself as a good boss. She was firm, she was take-charge, but she secured what she wanted through diplomacy rather than haranguing. While male executives could rant all they wanted, when a female executive went off on a tear, she was labeled a ballbuster and even worse.
Though she desperately wanted to rant about what she’d witnessed this morning, she couldn’t lay that on her assistant.
Naomi handed her a sheaf of pink message slips, her hand trembling slightly.
“Can you brief me on the contents?” Ava asked.
Naomi was good at synopsizing notes. Out of respect for her residents at the San Juan Bautista senior living facility, Ava had turned off her phone’s ringer. And on the way back, as her driver negotiated the freeway, she’d formulated her response to what she considered a grievous incident that needed immediate action when she returned.
Though she’d asked Naomi to brief her, Ava was already thumbing through the message slips. She actually felt her gorge rise at what she read.
“It seems that in several of the Bay Area facilities,” Naomi began, swallowing hard, “there are reports of nasty behavior from the catering staff. So far, the facility directors have handled such incidents on their own, but they’re becoming common enough that three of our directors felt the need to report this to you.”
Holding the pink message slips, Ava felt this morning’s entire deplorable scene flood her senses all over again.
She’d been heading to the staff table in the back of the dining room to confer with her management team. Close to the end of the lunch hour, few diners remained, but as she’d crossed the room, waving to those she knew, she’d heard the low growl of a middle-aged server as he leaned close to Mrs. Greeley.
“Look at the mess you made,” he hissed. “You eat like a pig at a trough. You should be ashamed of yourself.”
Ava had been so stunned she’d stopped right there. Unable to move. So shocked she couldn’t say a thing. Until Mrs. Greeley quietly began to cry.
She’d rushed to comfort the woman. And to confront the server. The nerve of the man. With a soothing hand on Mrs. Greeley’s shoulder, she spoke to him in the deadliest of voices. “First of all, Mrs. Greeley has macular degeneration, and she can’t see her food.” She pointed to the plate. “You’re supposed to put her meat at twelve o’clock, the potatoes at three, vegetables at six, and bread at nine. Otherwise, she doesn’t know what’s on her plate.” She speared the man with a scathing look. “Secondly, she accidentally dropped her fork and you—” She pointed at the man’s chest, her manicured nail just short of knifing him. “—didn’t get her a clean one. Third—” She lasered him. “You never, ever speak to one of our guests that way. And fourth.” Her nostrils flaring with anger, she smiled like a feral animal. All teeth. “You’re fired.”